MindsBase

Caution: SPOILERS!

My daughter (11) and I braved the crowds and overpriced popcorn to see Hunger Games on opening weekend.

We had both read the trilogy, and neither of us were bothered by the violence that has stirred controversy of late. We weren’t sure if the movie would be a bit gory for us, but I promised to nudge her if it looked to be heading that way. Didn’t turn out to be a problem.

What surprised me was the number of men in the audience. I thought it heartening, from an authorial standpoint, that there have been enough good stories with active female leads that guys no longer dismiss the movie as a chick flick, nor do they go hoping to see a bombshell with balloons on her chest.

But anyway, since then, I have seen the show twice more, and only now do I feel ready to give an opinion about both the story and the film. Why was this one so hard to pin down? I think it is because it is the anti-Twilight. Stick with me, here. Reading the Twilight series is an escape from reality. A sickeningly perfect man, a drippingly sweet romance, “problems” of a love triangle, with a drummed up social conflict wrapper that doesn’t feel real or immediate to our own world.

Hunger Games, on the other hand, hits so many notes with people, resonates, because it puts reality right in our faces. Its social conflict echos history in countless ways and lays out an inevitable future, perhaps not in the particulars but in the generalities. It forces us to see the everlasting state of man on the earth as a seeker of power and control and dominion over his fellow man, whatever the cost. Other books, (indeed, all cautionary tales), have warned of this, but Hunger Games does it with a flair that widens its audience — in contrast to, say, Lord of the Flies (or countless others). Oh yeah, and there is a romance, built on real respect and kept in the background to the real conflicts.

I have concluded that HG is so effective because its author, Suzanne Collins, came from television writing, and thus wrote a very cinematic book that appeals to today’s audience. I recently commented on an email list that this is one flaw I found in the books, that they were not subtle, that everything was right “onscreen”. My imagination, when given the chance, makes things much more sinister than any concrete thing she wrote in the series. Collins also co-wrote the screenplay, and here she really shines as a creator. With a solid team of cinematographers, costumers and others, the vision becomes more complete, the themes clearer.

So, this is a singular story where the film is actually better than the book!

Here are a few themes my daughter and I discussed after seeing the film:

• Awareness of manipulation changes you from being a victim to a person with power (the kids in the games, best articulated by Peeta).
• Priorities, and what we will compromise for (similar to above… “If I’m going to die, I want to still be me.” –Peeta “I can’t afford to think like that.” –Katniss).
• Sometimes our only power is to opt out of something, and we should use it (Gale doesn’t watch the start of the games, but goes to the wilderness).
• Societies with cancerous cores are overly concerned with image, comfort and personality, including apparel and other adornments (the Capital citizens. Effie Trinket provided an excellent contrast in appearance and dialogue).
• Totalitarian regimes most fear individual spirit and will work to break it systematically (personified by the President but in truth it is always an oligarchy).
• And, no matter how they try to squash it, the human spirit is ultimately uncontainable (the outlying districts, but also in the film personified by Kato at the end).
• Societies may have very little material wealth and even struggle to survive, but they still form families and band together and value each other. Government doesn’t create society, it is self-organizing. (district 12, and 11 [Rue's district]).
• Scientific and technological advancement is double-edged when used without considerations of morality (muttations, the games themselves, etc.) On this, we noticed how technology de-humanized those in the district (the blood typing, the injected trackers, etc) but it also de-humanized the Capital citizens with their made-up bodies.

Historical and literary nods:

• The Olympic games of Greece.
• Ancient Rome at the time of the Colosseum — the tributes’ first entrance by chariot to kick off the games — even the sountrack felt Roman. In a documentary I watched last week, it was said that during one week of gladiator games, 11,000 animals were killed for sport, They didn’t even bother counting the human total. It’s recorded that some people who came were intoxicated by all the violence, and in fact went mad from it.
• The costuming and lens filters in the districts was strongly reminiscent of early to mid- 1900s. Especially during and post-war times. This was particularly powerful for me, as is last century has been the bloodiest of human history. Later, below the arena, the entrance pod area was very much a modern torture chamber. Was that a handheld shower station to the right of the pod? For washing off blood and fluids?
• The President scenes were in a garden of mostly roses that reminded us of the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland. And if you look at how they interpreted the capital costuming, it’s very “down the rabbit hole” as well.
• Did it remind anyone else of The Truman Show with the gamemaker and his team interspersed with the main story, and the cameras in the arena?
• I was glad to see that, unlike The Matrix which made all the “bad guys” white and the zionists multi-cultural, this film put people of all races on every side — capital citizens, district folk, tributes, the game tech team. Makes it easier for us to overlay the parable onto many cultures and not feel they are forcing us to a particular conclusion. In human history, no culture or race has been immune from evils.

I do think that book one of the Hunger Games trilogy is the most clear in its themes. For the purposes of literary discussion, the book stands alone and in fact, its themes become diluted over the next two books. However, there are some upcoming themes hinted at that will be important in later films, assuming the complete the trilogy. For instance, the Avox servants in the background.

I had a couple tiny nit-picks — were those guys peacekeepers or stormtroopers? The white outfits were strange. And the way they made it seem like the dogish mutts were designed and bred in the space of thirty seconds gave me such a big “oh yeah?” that it seemed impossible they could tear human flesh during the climax.

Overall, the movie was spot-on in the notes it hit. I’m not a movie crier, but even the third time I went, I teared up at the district silent salutes (both when Katniss volunteers and when district 11 shows it for Rue). They didn’t overdialogue the story — there are long silences and only slight emotion on the actors faces during much of it. Thus it achieved what the book lacked — subtlety and therefore depth.

So! I recommend this richly symbolic film for all but the most squeamish.

Enjoy!

A Game of Shadows

I, like so many others, like to indulge in a family movie over the holidays. This time, it was the new Sherlock Holmes film. I enjoyed the first one, but this one looked even better, as they introduce Holmes’ nemesis, Professor Moriarty. That makes it more interesting from the start.

The story is a fun romp through clues (as any good mystery should be) in a steampunkish world that I found appealing. Now, there was a time when I would have torn the science apart, and surely there are many that already have for this film, but it didn’t bother me. In fact, what they’ve made of Holmes is a superhero. Superhero worlds have shoddy science. Think Bruce Banner. Spiderman? Please.

Yet don’t we all love a superhero story?

I don’t want to spoil too much of the fun if you haven’t seen it, but I want to say that I was impressed with how high they set the stakes in the first part of the film. I was firmly invested after we see what Moriarty is capable of… especially important because, as a superhero movie, we know Holmes (and Watson too) are not in any real danger of death, or even of not winning.

Other good things: the musical score!

And, the comedy, boy, was it funny. The guys have a real rapport that comes through, but the sparkle is in the situational comedy and dialogue of some very witty writers. Had a bit of a Pirates of the Caribbean feel to the humor. Very in-world. Let’s check who has writing credit… Michele and Kieran Mulroney, whose other main credit is a film I’ve not heard of: Paper Man. Hmmm. Looks a bit off-beat, but maybe I’ll check it out.

It’s interesting that on a big-budget film with strong acting and directing, riding on the shoulders of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the credited writers are relative nobodies. Kind of encouraging for other aspiring writer nobodies who shall remain nameless.

If you miss it in the theaters, it’s at least worth a Netflix. It’s head and shoulders better than the first one and makes you want to delve into the novels if you’ve yet to get around to them. For me, the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes has made it onto my reading list for the first time as a result of this fun film. Check it out!

This is the first book in a new series by Orson Scott Card (author of Ender’s Game). It is (I think) his first book that they’ve actively marketed as YA, although Ender’s Game is admittedly loved by all ages and stages.

Pathfinder is a bit of a genre blend, with some mystical/fantastic elements like (more-or-less) magical talents and some sci-fi tropes like space and time travel.

Main character Rigg has always had a unique ability to see living things with a path trailing behind them. Initially, this is only helpful in tracking animals with his father, but soon he finds that the luminous trails are echos of where that person (or animal) has been in the past.

Once he teams up with another boy who has the ability to manipulate time, things get pretty interesting.

The scope grows with the story, becoming heroic – epic, but in the hands of such a seasoned storyteller I didn’t get lost, nor did I stop caring what happened to the individuals I started the journey with.

If you are familiar with sci-fi / fantasy, I think you’ll enjoy Pathfinder. If you’re used to mainstream YA, you may struggle with the pacing. He explains the background of civilizations, though not in as thick a way as old sci-fi. It does feel like modern sci-fi, but I have to argue with the designation of YA.

It isn’t paced as YA. The jacket and dimensions definitely don’t feel YA. It doesn’t contain any R-rated content so it works nicely as a crossover, but if I were a sixteen-year-old sci-fi lover, I would be looking for this book on the regular adult sci-fi shelf, not among the girly vampire romances that still plague the young adult section.

I picked Pathfinder up off a center display table at Barnes & Noble that featured discounted big-name books… so I fear Pathfinder has not been selling well. I feel sure this is because of the jacket treatment, et al. Also, I didn’t find a word count on this tome, but it feels to be well over 100k, thickness akin to Harry Potter 7, which also may dissuade readers.

Which is too bad. It’s a well-handled story that you can sink into and enjoy for a week of evening reading. None of those false, tricky hooks that make you blaze through it at lightening speed (like Hunger Games) while neglecting house and home — those types of books are starting to really annoy me. I do have a life, after all.

My only complaint was that after the satisfying “end”, Card has a final reveal and sets us up for book 2 in a sort-of tacked on way. This is something that always makes me want to wait until a series is all written before I begin. But oh, well. I’ll be reading book 2 to see how Rigg and his cohorts meet their next big battles.

Enjoy!

Have you read The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffeneger? Me neither. But I did flip through it and read several passages. I was intrigued by the premise, being a sucker for both (light) science fiction and (some) romance.

I also liked the way the book was told in alternate first-person, sort of as a series of journal entries… but more like word snapshots. My son’s first-grade teacher would call them “small moment” scenes. Short but detailed. It was a great way to keep us invested in what would otherwise be a rather confusing, tangled story.

If you are the sort of person that just can’t get past the paradoxes that the whole premise of time travel deals with, then this story isn’t for you. If you can, you’ll enjoy either the book or the 2009 movie, or both.

Hey, that’s funny. I just realized that the movie’s main actor, Eric Bana, his last movie was about time travel, too — the new Star Trek.

I’ve had a hard time liking Bana since he played in the 2003 screen version of The Hulk, a movie I absolutely hated. I wanted to like it, because I liked the TV show and think the Bruce/Hulk is one of the most interesting super heroes. He’s not simply Jekyll and Hyde — good and bad. I like to think of Hulk as misunderstood. And that there are times for the use of anger and physical power, like to protect the weak and innocent, not to be a victim of a vilified military. The 2008 version looked exactly the same — Hulk vs. the military and I think that’s really boring.

(I also wanted to like the 2003 Hulk movie because of my long-time love of the movie Labyrinth in which Jennifer Connelly also starred. But I digress.)

But, in The Time Traveler’s Wife, Bana is really good, as of course is Rachel McAdams, who I liked in this performance better than in The Notebook.

Back to time travel.

It is nearly impossible to create a good story that centers around time travel, because first you have to deal with what happens when you change something in the past or future. This movie didn’t attempt to grapple with it, which makes it a little unusual. It laid out, very early and very clearly, that Henry, the time traveler, didn’t have the power to change anything significant in the past or future. Of course, the things he does throughout the movie change things as far as his relationship to his wife, but still… I could accept these boundaries and enjoy the movie within them.

This made the movie really a story about a man’s relationship with his wife.

Their relationship reminded me a bit of Lois and Clark (Superman), where she is the stability that anchors him, domesticates and humanizes him. Poor Henry, though, instead of having super-powers, has a super curse, in that he cannot control when or where he travels in time. There are some redeeming factors, though, and I enjoyed how these things made room in the story for other elements. After all, a guy that time travels at random can hardly hold down a job, so it’s very helpful that he can win the lottery so as not to be worried about money on top of his other issues.

I found it particularly interesting that the story took on infertility as a main issue. It made the otherwise rather perfect Clare more real, that she had serious issues of her own to grapple with.

So, Henry and Clare ended up being, for me, one of the more relatable couples I’ve seen onscreen. They are experiencing a great love, but not an ideal life, and I get that. Awesome love doesn’t equal perfect life. Not until we’re all behind the pearly gates, I guess.

The screenplay writer is Bruce Joel Rubin, who also wrote Ghost and several others. I liked this screenplay well enough that I’m tempted to check out his lesser-known films like My Life and even Stewart Little 2! Well, we’ll see, since he also wrote the Last Mimzy which I found rather silly.

On a more visual design note, the movie had a lovely look. You get a feel for it in the movie poster, isn’t that image beautalicious?

This movie gets four and a half nods from me!

enjoy!

Or Visitors — whichever meaning you espouse for ABC television series “V”. I had high hopes, but just haven’t felt the need to keep up with it. Yes, it makes for an interesting allegory of terrorism and guerrilla warfare, but the individual stories feel a little lackluster and the characters seem cardboard.

So I want to point you toward two other shows I’m just starting on DVD.

Jericho

This CBS show only made it through a partial second season, and I’m just a few episodes in on season one, but this is a show that is tugging at my emotions already.

But let’s back up. Here’s what CBS says Jericho is about:

Returning for a second season as a result of one of the most unprecedented and impassioned displays of fan support on behalf of a television program, JERICHO is a drama about what happens in the aftermath of a nuclear explosion in the once peaceful town of Jericho.

In other words, it is near-future post-apolcolypse sci-fi. This could have gone very grandiose and epic (kind of what V is doing) but instead, the episodes have featured small, immediate problems, like a little girl with a bruised windpipe and a stranded woman getting picked up by escaping ex-cons. How people deal with these immediate problems — rather than the obvious one of the apocolypse itself — is great storytelling!

Also, it has a rather charming small-town-pulling-together-in-crisis thing going on. It’s a great exploration of how a town would have to transition from denial (people still trying to go to work) to survival (everyone pooling resources and sharing tasks).

Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles

Another show that has already hit the skids — (when will the networks learn?) — is Fox’s Terminator series. This one is more small-cast and personal, dealing with Sarah and her teenaged future-leader-of-the-resistance son some years before the world is taken over by machines. An artificial intelligence called Skynet, to be precise.

Same brand of fun as the movies — hand-to-hand action, some explosions, some suspense. It does aim a little higher, though, with some thought-provoking tie-ins through Sarah Connor’s voice-over narration. Perhaps it must dig a little deeper to compensate for the TV budget, but I think this is a good thing. Sarah wrestles with whether she should kill one man to help save humanity, or how to protect a son who is destined to risk it all to save the world, and so forth. Keeps it interesting.

I also enjoy strong female leads, and Sarah is good, but Summer Glau as the girl terminator is perfect. They have fun playing off the idea that people would underestimate small-statured women. Not unlike Sydney of Alias, now I think on it. By the way, this is one complaint I have with Jericho, at least in the few episodes I’ve watched. There is a fair amount of “help the poor girl” going on. In the early episodes that featured young women, both heroines were ultimately saved by Jake, the hero. Ah well, can’t have it all. There may never be another Alias.

What, you haven’t watched Alias? Okay, before you try Jericho or Terminator, GO WATCH ALIAS. If you can get past the occasional fake blood and torturous screaming now and again, you’ll find a smart, exciting mystery/romance with one of the strongest lead women characters ever on TV. Sydney Bristow.*

* And I don’t mean strong as in physical, because that would probably be the terminator girl. Sydney can handle herself physically, but her real strength lies in her quick thinking and her caring and humanity that shine through even the toughest situations. She’s the kind of woman you want your daughter to be as she faces her own demons in life.